Question

I am trying to convert a multi-line string, to insert line breaks \n after two final closing parenthesis occur in series, ie: )) becomes ))\n.

There is also likely to be a ‘)’ just prior to the ‘))’, effectively creating ‘)))’.

These two or three parenthesis may or may not be “spread out” by indeterminate lengths of whitespace, eg )), ) ), ))), ) ) ), )) ), ) )) and so on.

I’ve tried the following:

//Example message
$message = '(item (name 286) (Index 31) (Image "item001") (class money coin) (code 4 110 0) (country 2) (plural 1) (buy 0))
(item(name 7904)(Index 7904) (specialty (Dex 10(defense 55)(hp 3500)(dodge 71)          ))

(item(name 7905)(Index 7905)(country 2) 
(level 80)(specialty(hp 3400)               )                               )

(item(name 7906)(Index 7906)(level 80)      (specialty(Str 10))                             ) ';

// Converts all lines into one line    
$message =  preg_replace("/[\r\n]*/","",$message); 

// Replace '))' with '))\n' - doesn't work.
$message =  preg_replace("/[)s+)]s*/","\n",$message); 

$InititemLines = explode("\n", $message);
for ($line = 0; $line < count($InititemLines); $line++) {
    echo "Line #<b>{$line}</b> : " . $InititemLines[$line] . "<br />\n";
}

To convert all lines into one, I used:

$message = preg_replace("/[\r\n]*/","",$message);

Then, to replace )) with ))\n, I tried the following (but it doesn’t work):

$message = preg_replace("/[)s+)]s*/","))\n",$message);

I want the output to be like this:

Line #0: (item (name 286) (Index 31) (Image "item001") (class money coin) (code 4 11 0 0) (country 2) (plural 1) (buy 0))
Line #1: (item(name 7904)(Index 7904) (specialty    (Dex 10)(defense 55)(hp 3500)(dodge 71)         ))
Line #2: (item(name 7905)(Index 7905)(country 2)(level 80)(specialty(hp 3400)       )           )
Line #3: (item(name 7906)(Index 7906)(level 80)     (specialty(Str 10))     )

Answer 1

This will replace the “))” at the end of ALL lines, in the case of line ending in ))) or )):

$message = Preg_replace( "\)?(\s*\)\s*\))", "$1\n", $message );

This regex means

• find an optional single closing parenthesis ‘)’. We escape it as ‘)’ as the parenthesis has special meanings in regex. It’s optional because of the trailing ‘?’.
• followed by 0 or more space characters denoted as ‘\s’. 0 or more denoted by ‘*’,
• followed by another ‘)’
• followed by another 0 or more spaces,
• followed by another ‘)’
• Then we surround \s*\)\s*\) with a pair of ‘(‘ and ‘)’ meaning “group this section, so we can reference it later”. We do this so we can replace it with ))\n.

---

And then a more elegant solution might be (depending on your requirements…), to subsequently also strip any excess remaining spaces from before every ‘)’:

$message = preg_replace("(\)\s*)", "\)", $message);

This regex means

• find an operning ‘)’,
• followed by 0 or more spaces
• Grouped, so we can replace.

(In your example, I believe this will strip all the excess whitespace, while leaving the spaces in your strings alone).